Goblin and Coins II: The Lost Recipes Steam Charts & Stats

It's a nice game.

This was pretty okay. As advertised, it's a rather meat and potatoes stage based, reusing the assets from the last one. I replayed levels quite a bit trying to get everything, and while I didn't quite get the results I wanted (a few levels I couldn't get the all coins star and the timely completion one in a single run), for the most part it delivers in being a simple little platformer. A few enemies are kind of annoying, but for the most part the game felt fair (a few bits had margins significantly tighter than the rest of the game, but it never needs to be pixel/frame perfect). While there's a few kinda maze-ish levels that do make optimizing the route for all coins less than obvious, the loopbacks are frequent enough to never feel as daunting as the XL levels in GnCII could get. Oh, and the recipes look like they're probably pretty nice. Need to try them out, though.

This game is a standalone expansion for the previous title, Goblin and Coins II. After retrieving all the coins and his precious cookbook, goblin chef realises that some of the pages are missing. To his frustration, those happen to be the ones containing dessert recipes. Since no meal is truly complete without those, our intrepid hero is compelled to go on another adventure and retrieve the missing pages. The game contains 5 chapters, each of which in turn contains 5 thematically similar levels. It becomes apparent very quickly that this game is a markedly more casual experience than the previous installment. The difficulty level is lower, due to, in no small part, double jump being available from the beginning, as well as the unlimited number of continues. There are also no boss fights. All but the most casual players will only notice the difficulty begin to ramp up somewhat in chapter 4, since the precious chapters are mostly a walk in the park. The quest will again take you through various types of environments, all of which are significantly more visually appealing compared to the previous game. The jump in details and the quality of pixel art is obvious literally from the very beginning and is a joy to see. There is also a sense of familiarity and continuity, since many enemies will be familiar to those who have played Goblin and Coins II, along with some new ones. Background music and ingame sounds are also very similar. Gameplay-wise, the game runs very smoothly, with no noticeable glitches or bugs. The one thing that seems to have been improved is the camera, since it appears smoother and less jerky, at least that was my impression. Last but not the least, the game has an achievement system which adds another incentive to explore all the levels completely and pick up all the coins and recipes. It took me between 3 and 3.5 hours to finish the game and complete all 20 feats. Most of them I got simply by progressing through the game itself. My overall impression is that this game offers less challenge than its predecessor. Instead, it is a much more relaxed, cute and altogether more casual experience, perhaps aimed at a wider audience. I heartily recommend everyone to give it a try.

Much prettier and more fluent than its predecessor. Great little platformer.